


Paradigm

by John_Steiner



Category: George Carlin - Fandom, Science Fiction - Fandom, distant future - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22759168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Mikhial is part of an international effort to explore a world with unknown environments. After making reentry and touchdown, Mikhial ventures on foot toward an unexpected find of what looks like a jungle. His instruments suggests the conditions necessary for such an environment are absent. With another mission crew member in remote contact, Mikhial enters the jungle to take samples and discover more familiarity with the lifeforms than anyone expected.





	Paradigm

"Pink skies as night," said Mikhial, to be carried by his suit comms, "Sailor's delight."

"You sure that's not red skies at night?" he heard Jordan ask through the earpiece.

"No," Mikhail replied as he strode carefully toward the jungle that the team sighted from orbit, and then stopped and raised a finger, as though she could see it. "Well, yes, but also pink. Bot'h sayings are true, zhough pink is about clouds while red is about dust. Is told zhat when high pressure is at night you get red dusk, but when light coming zhrough clouds you get pink."

"How do you know?" Jordan asked.

"Is in archives," Mikhail answered, resuming his trek to the jungle. "I read it. I never zhought I would be able to test idea but here we are. Zhe first people to verify if world is habitable."

"Don't get your hopes up," Jordan warned, "Could just be that's all dead foliage and that no decay happened because the bacteria are extinct too."

"I have fait'h," Mikhail said, as his heavy tromp became more upbeat.

For decades since prolonged habitation in space became possible it was assumed that no planet could harbor life. However, telescopes spotted surface changes that astronomers, astro-geologists, and solar physicists nearly all agreed could not be connected to nonliving phenomenon from their respective expertise.

So, a unified humanity dispatched a deep space mission to ascertain what exactly was causing surface changes. Mikhail was nineteen years old when he was selected as the team's pilot-certified geological expert. The following twelve years were confining and boring, but now he felt it had all been worth it.

"Mikhail," Jordan's voice beeped through his earpiece. "How are the winds there?"

"Winds are," Mikhail paused to look at his visor HUD, "seven kilometers an hour at steady heading of t'hree, ten degrees. Suit sensors read twenty t'hree degrees C and humidity is... wait, zhat's not right."

"What?" Jordan's voice heightened a little. "What's not right? Mikhail, talk to me. What're you seeing that's not right?"

"Humidity reads zero percent." Mikhail was utterly confused, and then waved his gloved hand ahead of him. "But how could zhat be wit'h jungle right zhere?"

"I told you," Jordan admonished as though she wanted to gently disappoint a child. "You shouldn't have gotten your hopes up."

"I will carry on and make sure," Mikhail said, dismissing the notion, "If is nothing, like you say, I will accept results and come back to buggy and return to landing sight for pickup."

"Mikhail?" Jordan softened her tone. "I'm sorry. I'm disappointed too. Two weeks of setting up an orbital network, another five days for plotting an atmo entry, and two in the capsule to make sure the air and soil were free of toxins or pathogens."

"Jordan," Mikhail spoke up on noticing something else in his HUD, "I am getting movement. My range to jungle is fifty two meters, and motion sensor is detecting movement."

"Can you get your suit LIDAR to get a surfacing scan of it?" Jordan asked.

"Yes," Mikhail answered, and used the focal points of his eyes to operate the ocular responsive control in his helmet, "Stand by."

"Data's coming through," Jordan responded, "Odd."

"I see it too," a disbelieving Mikhail agreed, "Is macaque. Is a monkey."

"Thank you, I know what a macaque is," Jordan scolded, "Remember who the biologics expert is here."

"Sorry, just zhought no one remembers what is macaque, because zhey have been extinct for so long," Mikhail said.

"Everything on Earth is extinct," Jordan replied, "Just like we were told growing up. Only...."

"Here we are," Mikhail stated slowly, as much for himself as for Jordan and the others still in the orbiting main ship listening to Mikhail, "on Eart'h and yet zhere is life here."

"Mikhail?" Mission Commander Deidre Myers chimed in over comms, "If you feel the situation is still safe I'll authorize your approach into the jungle. Do you deem is safe to proceed?"

"Yes," Mikhail declared quickly, "What harm can macaque do?"

"Alright," Deidre accepted, "Proceed."

"Danka, Commander," Mikhail's cheer was infectious as he resumed his awkward march in the bulky suit designed for the full vacuum of space.

After a minute Jordan queried, "Range to jungle?"

"Five meters," Mikhail announced, and added after a few more paces. "I'm here. I will collect samples for chemical analysis."

Mikhail went to knelt down at the nearly sprout of green under the jungle canopy. From one suit pouch he removed a set of clippers and from another a handheld multi-spectroscopy unit. Selecting a stem, Mikhail carefully set the clippers and snipped off a small leaf. Next, he put the clippers away and selected for tweezer extensions from the hardened smart material comprising the thumb and index fingers of his suit glove.

Taking his time, Mikhail bent slowly and reached down while focusing on the stability of his kneeling position. His visor could take a substantial hit, having been designed to hold up to high speed dust particulate impacts. The visor would shatter, of course, but its integrity would hold long enough for a wearer to make their way to an airlock of their ship or station.

"Got it," Mikhail announced on picking up the leaf, which he placed into an open compartment of the spectroscope box to close it and await the results. "One t'hing good about humanity being banished to moons of Jupiter and Saturn."

"What's that?" Jordan asked.

"Material science advanced so quickly," Mikhail answered while he stared at the box display. "Had it not we'd be dead."

"Are you going to go off again about your granddad pioneering and prospecting the asteroid belt?" Jordan bemoaned.

"No," Mikhail smirked, "You've memorized zhat story. My work zhere is done. I will instead tell you about my great, great, great, great, Great, GREAT, great aunt, Valentina Tereshkova. She was second person in space and first woman in space. Very proud moment for my people. Twenty years ahead of your Sally Ride and pilot of her space capsule."

"Yawn," Jordan scoffed.

"Not a wrong response," Mikhail said, still waiting on the sensor. "She died in training flight. Russian military jets zhen were very sketchy."

"You sure you're using that right?" Jordan called back.

"Sketchy is right word," Mikhail said.

"No, the analyzer," Jordan specified, "Are you using it correctly?"

"What can be incorrect?" Mikhail remarked, "Place sample in box, close it, push go, and wait. Ah, here we are."

"And...?" Jordan teased out.

"Aye-ye-ye, I don't believe it," Mikhail said, "It reads zhat whole t'hing is polymers. It has cellular structure, so it must be living t'hing, but its chemistry is plastic."

"That's impossible," Jordan's voice huffed a laugh of disbelief. "That's insane. Just plastic and nothing else?"

"Many varieties of plastic, to be sure," an equally befuddled Mikhail added, "But plastic for certain. I don't understand it myself."

"Any chance you could sample an animal?" Deidre spoke up.

"I will look," Mikhail grunted as he carefully rose up off his knee.

"Not the macaque though," Jordan warned, "Monkeys in the wild could be unpredictable."

"Zhe hairless ones especially so," Mikhail chided, “Who knew zhat zhey would screw up zheir only planet?"

Mikhail approached one of the tree trunks to get a closer look for anything crawling on its surface. He saw a variety of invertebrates all up and down the length of the trunk. At first, he went to pluck a leafhopper, but true to its name the animal leapt off. Next, he went for something his visor display designated as a tropical aphid.

Then, Mikhail stopped himself. "Ah, wrong."

"Excuse me," Jordan bid of Mikhail.

"Forgot to wipe down and rinse sensor compartment," Mikhail explained, and proceeded to do just that. "Wouldn't want bad readings."

After finishing that task Mikhail again went to pinch at the aphid to place its crushed remains in the analyzer. As before, Mikhail waited a long moment, but this time said nothing.

"Set your suit cams onto the unit's display," Jordan directed.

"Yes, I will do zhat," Mikhail agreed, "Zhis way I alone can't be insane unless you're insane wit'h me if we see same t'hing."

"Was that thing moving before you grabbed it?" Jordan asked after the readings came up.

"Very much so, da," Mikhail said, slipping into Russian on his last word, "Ants are parading zhem up zhe trunk."

"It's near sundown, so that makes sense," Jordan surmised, "If the ecology is anything else what the real thing used to be, they'd be corralling their livestock back up for the night."

"But plastic," Mikhail declared, "How can zhat be?"

"I guess the old sage was right," Jordan answered.

"What sage?" Mikhail bid of her. "I know nothing of zhis sage."

"He claimed the Earth wanted plastic and that's why it allowed humanity to be spawned from it in the first place," Jordan explained.

She sounded perplexed as Mikhail felt on hearing that, so he assumed his grasp of English hadn't diminished in in the last few minutes. He turned in place to size up the very much thriving jungle life all around him. All of it made from a synthetic compound invented and over-produced by the last few generations of Earth-dwelling humans.


End file.
